


Look Both Ways

by Fluffifullness



Category: Durarara!!, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Contracts, Durarara!! Kink Meme, Gen, Humor, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Trolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 22:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Izaya strikes up a deal with Kyubey - nothing good comes of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Both Ways

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know, I really don't. It seemed like a good idea when I came across [this prompt](http://drrrkink.livejournal.com/6253.html?thread=22657389#t22657389) on the kink meme.
> 
> Oh, and ／人◕‿‿◕人＼.
> 
> That is all.

At first it was just a flash of white that flitted past the farthest corner of Izaya’s peripheral vision. He was busy and not given to paranoid superstition, though, so he disregarded it after only a cursory glance up and around at his sparsely-lit apartment. The sun was setting, the room with all its books and wide-open spaces dyed a venomous red. The informant was just able to distinguish the faint thrum of the human city below him; it was nearly drowned out by the clatter of slender fingers on row after row of plastic keys and characters.

He forgot about the slight disturbance quickly, breathed a half-bored sigh, and turned back to the document brimming with the information that he had taken the liberty of researching personally. Unexplained disappearances, vague memories, and a string of recent suicides.

Izaya was mostly certain that he’d had nothing to do with the latter.

“You could be much more powerful than you are now.”

The informant’s eyes widened as he whipped around to face the voice – much like that of a child, maybe feminine or maybe just a bit too high-pitched to belong to anyone older. It had come from behind and below him, and it was directly followed by a series of light taps that traced an invisible semi-circle in the smooth wood of the floor.

“Oh~?” Izaya called, and he climbed deliberately to his feet. He’d caught sight of it again – a fluid movement, something ample and most probably soft to the touch. It wasn’t human; that much he knew. “Do you have something to offer me?”

“If you make a contract with me, I can grant you anything you desire.”

The informant laughed conversationally as he lowered the lid of his laptop. He did it cautiously, as if sudden motion or loud noise might scare the voice’s owner away. “What’s the catch?”

He rounded the corner of the desk, then, and even managed to catch a glimpse of pink as his visitor dodged the flash of a knife to land – fully visible at last – on the flat surface of an adjacent table.

_Those eyes…_

That was his first concrete thought in the silence that supplanted the brief flutter of motion. They were huge, beady – spaced far apart and set above what appeared to be a perpetual smile. Shining in a manner that would have easily conquered the heart of any adolescent girl.

They were eyes that should not – not _ever_ – be trusted.

And then there were the gravity-defying rings about its ears – assuming, of course, that those _were_ ears and not just two extra hunks of flesh. Combined with the eyes and the plush tail, the cat-like body, the could-be-silent paws, and the slight tilt of a bulbous head… Izaya could only describe the thing as hideous.

Hideous and fascinating.

“You’ll became a magical girl and save the world from witches,” the thing explained at length. Izaya smirked, and his own eyes glinted with barely-concealed curiosity. The mouth was frozen in a permanent smile, after all, but there was no doubt about it; the voice belonged to the creature.

“I don’t suppose you’ve noticed that I’m not a female? Your terminology doesn’t apply to someone like me.”

The thing swayed for a moment, then leapt to the floor and started to pace. “I was told that you wield a great deal of power in this city, Orihara Izaya-san.”

“Don’t feel like answering my question?” He had several more, after all – one of which would now involve the person who had led this thing to him. It even knew his name…

“Gender has no meaning in this fight,” the cat-like animal said, pausing in its back-and-forth stroll to gaze confidently up at Izaya. “If you desire anything so much that you would willingly trade your soul for it, then you can make a contract with me to have your wish granted. And then you’ll fight witches.”

Izaya chuckled. “As a… magical girl, huh?” He extended one and then another arm above his head in a lazy stretch before adding, “Those are some pretty high stakes, though. Can’t say I’m particularly interested in that contract of yours.”

_This human… he’s very perceptive._

The informant stopped, blinked. “What…?” The same voice, but in his head – oh, how interesting. “That’s a pretty neat trick,” he murmured, then, and the creature remained as still as if it had been turned to stone.

“So, do you have anything like a name?” Izaya questioned – crouched in front of the thing, smile as polite and business-like as if he were speaking to Shiki-san himself.

“Kyubey,” the thing said, and behind the spoken name was a second that echoed again in Izaya’s mind.

_Incubator._

“You have another kind of deal to make with me, don’t you, Orihara-san?”

~

It _was_ a different sort of contract, this one – one without obligations, and no energy obtained. It was, all things considered, nothing more than the permission of an egotistical human, a few very significant tidbits of information shared with one too astute to make a _proper_ contract. Ordinarily, of course, Kyubey would have disregarded as a coward – a lost cause – anyone unwilling to accept the terms of a contract.

Orihara-san was different. He was a schemer, himself.

He would pull some strings in the background, name a few names – not realizing, perhaps, that the Incubator needed no such assistance – and Kyubey would be left alone. It realized, after all, that the dark-haired man had all the resources, all the connections he needed to interfere rather drastically; as long as time and speed were of the essence, it couldn’t hurt to have him out of the way.

There was the young man with hair that very much resembled the informant’s and an innocent face that couldn’t have been more different. Behind that was a soul that yearned greedily for what he repeatedly termed “excitement.” The extraordinary. Change on a daily basis.

(All of which, Kyubey thought humorlessly, would mean trouble for the city the boy so delighted in.)

It took little prying – just a few extra appeals to old values, to justice, chivalry and all that – and Ryuugamine Mikado became the first male human to enter into a contract as a magical girl. It would take a while, Kyubey supposed, but there were enough conflicts inherent in the boy that a magnificent witch could certainly be expected eventually.

The leader of a gang popularly known as the “Dollars,” and that was only the first day. (And the first contract, for it was smoothly followed by a leading member of a powerful underground organization – Shiki of the Awakusu-kai, who was fool enough to wish for nothing more than the disbandment of a few juvenile gangs – and by a certain motorcycle-toting cop.)

Nothing, however – not Orihara Izaya, not anyone – could convince Kyubey to even attempt a contract with the man working at Russia Sushi. It was not that he was outwardly intimidating, no; it was the cool certainty that came with loving peace and enforcing it whenever possible. It would have been impossible, making him a witch – a strong witch, anyway. Any resentment in the giant man had long since dried up, after all, and it was resentment that bred witches. Orihara-san said _no, no, I’m sure we can think of something,_ but Kyubey was not given to risky maneuvers.

Simon Brezhnev was a waste of time.

Yagiri Namie, however, was not. She was a tough nut to crack – ah, human metaphors – but she gave in the moment her brother was mentioned.

(Her brother, on the other hand, gave in the moment Celty was mentioned.)

Ah, yes, Celty. She, too, was incompatible, and it pained (would have, anyway, if pain had amounted to anything more complex than emotion) Kyubey to discover as much. Her reaction to the creature had been surprising – obvious agitation and fingers leaking shadows as they skittered over the keypad of a PDA –

_A-a-are you – could you by any chance be an alien?!_

– considering that she, herself, wasn’t human either.

The informant – concealed by the corners of buildings and reflective coffee-shop windows – appeared to have been particularly amused by that. Amused enough that he came very close to dropping his binoculars; he was shaking so much that he had to pull them away from his eyes for a few moments regardless.

After that unfortunate incident, the dullahan became quite protective of her companion, the doctor – much to his delight, of course – and Kyubey was forced to give up on one more victim.

There was another, though, and that one was especially terrifying – Karisawa Erika, the young and cheerful woman who spoke a language apart from everyone else. She nearly made a particularly regrettable wish – _Shizaya_ , she screamed, and a terrified Yumasaki Walker clamped a hand over her mouth before she could say anything else.

It ended well, anyway. Two contracts in a day, two more warriors who would become witches just as soon as Orihara Izaya’s scheming successfully toppled the Dengeki Bunko imprint of their favorite publishing company.

(There was also a bit of reality distortion as the 2D world leaked into the real one, but that seemed a small price to pay.)

 

And then there was the blonde man with the street sign ripped from the pavement, bent and broken in his hands. The blonde man with an anger so intense, so unlimited and chaotically destructive – yes, this would yield more than enough energy. More than that Kaname girl – diamond in the rough though she was, her heart was still untainted by doubt and loathing. She would have to wait.

Kyubey was brutally smashed after its first attempt to approach the blonde. Like Izaya, this Heiwajima fellow was strangely perceptive. A city that bred deception, the Incubator decided, must have also bred many a cynical human.

But no matter.

It managed to make its proposal on the second try. It mentioned Orihara Izaya the third time, and after that Shizuo was a bit more open to consideration. He spoke more than just three-word threats and warnings.

And, finally – catching sight of the informant with his amused smirk and binoculars raised and pointed like a gun – he agreed.

Indicating his nemesis with a single finger, he grinned and demanded, “Make him scared of humans. As scared as fucking possible.”

Of course, Incubators did not do things by halves. It was a shame, really, because that Orihara-san clearly lived for humans. He’d know, of course, when it happened. Stumbling all over himself, wide-eyed and no longer even remotely amused, he did – and Shizuo didn’t stop laughing for the longest time after that.

Izaya probably hadn’t expected it, but he certainly should have. Because Kyubey knew of but did not entirely comprehend such values as loyalty. It understood contracts, and contracts were binding. The informant had simply left too much up to chance.

“If only you’d made one with me earlier, Orihara-san, you might have managed to avoid this mess…”

Perhaps it would stop by the office-apartment once more later. Just to make sure that the informant remained completely, wholly, _entirely_ uninterested in what Kyubey had to offer.


End file.
